The opportunist

The welcome split in the Likud between the old right and moderate right shook the political system as would be expected. For a moment, it looked like this time, the elections would be not just about jobs and seats, but about principles. The joy, apparently, was premature.

President Moshe Katzav's call on the parties yesterday not to conceal their platform and to speak clearly to the voter, as well as his diagnosis that the next elections would be a referendum on the territories' future, has fallen on deaf ears. Until now, only Amir Peretz has outlined his policy clearly. The Likud and Kadima are maintaining ambiguity, which is intended to dull the voters' senses yet again, and make them vote from the gut.

Since Ariel Sharon founded his new party, and even before it has had a chance to formulate its platform, opportunists have been lining up outside the prime minister's door. They read the polls and saw an opportunity to get themselves a good place in the next Knesset without making any effort.

Avi Dichter, for example, has not offered his opinion on any issue since Sharon's aides deemed him a promising politician. Perhaps this is the first requirement for admission to the new party. These are people who abhor political institutions, long processes, primaries and other chores associated with joining politics. They wish to parachute directly and comfortably into a safe Knesset slot. All they need to do now is please Sharon. Most of them will not remain in politics more than one term.

It is doubtful if anyone, including Shimon Peres, asks Sharon these days what his intentions are regarding the Palestinian issue. Sharon is selling his past - not his distant past, in which he was a political pariah, but the recent past of the successful pullout from Gaza. Sharon is mainly marketing the prospect of 33 Knesset seats - the most tempting incentive for candidates to join his list. Peres is also selling Sharon only his recent past - in which he served as wallpaper in Sharon's previous cabinet - and not his distant past in which he was described as "an Oslo criminal."

Sharon is promising nothing for the next term, only that he won't carry out another pullout. Even if he promises something, who's to say he won't change his mind in mid-course? Peres' negotiations to join Sharon's party as "minister for peace affairs" show how low Israeli politics have sunk. Each one is making sure of securing himself a job and a title, and the cause he promised to promote has become a nuisance. The search for a job will not stop Peres, or any other candidate, from declaring in radio and television programs that he's looking for neither jobs nor honor. Reality also is just a momentary nuisance that can be ignored.

Peres is more identified with Labor's platform than anyone else, and contended for the party's leadership less than a month ago. He had singled out Amir Peretz as his protege, and supported his longtime positions. Now he is threatening to hop onto Sharon's bandwagon without any real ideological reason, expressing deep contempt for the parliamentary system, for the rules of the internal-partisan democratic game, and even for striving for the renewal of the negotiations with the Palestinians, which Peres represents.

Peres' brother, Gigi, reflected the disgust he feels for the party. He said Labor had been "conquered by North African Falanges." As though the vote by party members does not count if they they don't vote for Shimon Peres.

In the partisan Israeli voting system, elections are not personal but fought on an ideological party platform. The voter chooses a party whose positions correspond with his own, and its work plan and candidates represent, in his eyes, the right alternative. Elections are not a lottery for an entrance ticket to the Knesset, as they recently appear to be.

Peres' defection from Labor would deal another blow to public confidence in politics. He does not intend to quit in order to form another party to promote his way, or because the new elected leader represents a way he does not believe in. He is moving to another party where he has been promised a job. Anyone smirking at Likud Central Committee members who are looking for perks and benefits for themselves must admit that Peres is no different than any small-time functionary. He lacks the dignity and wisdom that require one who loses in a face-off to accept the verdict and congratulate the winner.

Peres contributes to the feeling of nausea from politics that is shared by many in the public, and this damage is greater than any good that could come to Israel from his joining the future government. Benjamin Netanyahu, unlike Peres, has announced that he would accept the voters' verdict in the Likud primaries and remain in the party that represents his positions, even if he loses the leadership showdown. After next Friday's polls, and as long as Sharon's party is open to candidates, who knows who else will desert to it. Now they're looking, so we are told, for kibbutzniks.